Samsung Tab S10 Fe vs 11-inch iPad (A16): Which Is Better for Recording Online Teaching Videos?
It was 9:17 a.m. on a Tuesday, my cold oat milk latte was sweating through its coaster on the kitchen table, and I was staring at my frozen 2019 iPad for the third time that week. I’d just spent 22 minutes recording a 4th grade plant cell lesson for my homeschool co-op students who couldn’t make that week’s in-person class, and the screen had frozen mid-circle around the word “mitochondria.” I’d had enough. It was time to upgrade, and I couldn’t decide between the two mid-range options everyone was talking about for teaching: the Samsung Tab S10 Fe and the new 11-inch iPad with the A16 chip.
A friend who works at the downtown electronics store let me borrow both for two weeks, one per week, to test for my exact use case: recording pre-recorded teaching videos, occasional live Zoom classes, annotating lesson PDFs, and uploading straight to Google Classroom from the device. No fancy lab tests, just real daily use, the same as any parent or teacher would put it through.
I spent the first week with the Tab S10 Fe. I carried it back and forth between my kitchen table and the spare bedroom I use as an office, and I noticed right away it’s lighter than my old iPad, and noticeably lighter than the 11-inch iPad A16 when I picked that up the next week. I don’t set up a tripod every time—sometimes I just prop it against a stack of textbooks for a quick recording, or hold it over the table to demonstrate how to use a protractor or mix a baking soda volcano. The lighter weight means my arm doesn’t ache halfway through a 10-minute video, which is a small detail that adds up after a few lessons. The S Pen sticks magnetically to the back, so I never set it down between takes and lose it in the couch cushions, which was a constant problem with my old loose Apple Pencil. I annotated three or four worksheets a day, and any lag was so small I didn’t notice it while I was recording. When I exported the videos, the text I circled and highlighted was clear enough for students to read even on their phone screens, which is all I really need. The biggest win for me was expandable storage: I popped a $15 256GB SD card into the side, and now I can store all my raw video files on the device without having to offload them to an external drive every weekend. That saves me 20 minutes of admin a week I’d rather spend grading or planning.
The second week I switched to the 11-inch iPad A16, and the differences were immediately obvious, even for casual use. The front camera is far sharper. On cloudy days, my spare office doesn’t get great natural light, and when I record a quick talking head intro for each video, the Tab’s front camera comes out a little grainy, with soft focus around the edges of my face. The iPad’s camera was crisp and clear, even when the sky was fully overcast. The A16 chip is definitely faster, too: when I exported four 10-minute videos back to back, the Tab took 15 minutes total. The iPad did it in 4. When I edited a 25-minute video for a parent workshop, the Tab stuttered a little when I trimmed the end and added text overlays. The iPad handled it without a single hiccup. I tested a 1-hour live Zoom Q&A with parents on both, to compare performance for live teaching: the Tab got noticeably warm to the touch after 40 minutes, and the screen dimmed on its own to cool down, which threw off my recording. The iPad stayed cool the whole time, no dimming, no lag when I shared my annotated screen. The Apple Pencil worked great for annotating too—there was no noticeable difference in lag for my needs—but it doesn’t stick to the side as securely as the S Pen. It fell off twice when I carried the iPad from the kitchen to the office, once landing on the hardwood floor, and I got lucky it didn’t crack. Battery life was pretty similar on both: I got three full days of regular use (recording, uploading, casual browsing) out of both before needing to charge, so that wasn’t a deciding factor for me.
The biggest difference that matters for most parents and teachers, of course, is price. The base 128GB Tab S10 Fe is almost $220 cheaper than the base 128GB 11-inch iPad A16. That’s not a small gap. If you’re a homeschool parent buying this with your own money, or a part-time teacher working off a small annual stipend, that extra $220 can buy a whole year’s worth of workbooks, art supplies, or science experiment kits. The iPad also doesn’t offer expandable storage, so if you need more space for video files, you have to pay an extra $100 for the next storage tier, which pushes the price even higher.
For anyone trying to choose between the two, the call is pretty straightforward based on how you actually use your device. If you only record 10-15 minute pre-recorded videos for your class or your kid, you don’t do multiple hours of live teaching a week, and you’re working with a tight budget, the Tab S10 Fe checks every box you need. It makes clear, readable videos, the S Pen is reliable for annotating, and you get extra storage for almost no extra cost. If you teach live online multiple times a week, edit long-form videos regularly, or already use a Mac and iCloud for all your lesson planning, the extra cost of the A16 iPad is worth it. It saves you time on exports and editing, and it won’t overheat mid-live class.
I ended up buying the Tab S10 Fe, because it fit my co-op’s $400 annual tech stipend and does everything I need right now. I lent the iPad to a fellow co-op teacher who does two hours of live online tutoring every day, and she’s already saving up to buy one for herself. I’m working on a series of 30-minute science lessons for next year, so I may upgrade in a couple of years when I have the budget for it. For now, though, neither is a bad pick. You just don’t have to pay for features you won’t actually use.
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